Hope is a Thing With Feathers
by FlamesEmbrace
Summary: Primarily SasuNaru, a smattering of other pairings listed inside. To be a ninja is to learn. Sakura learns about life. Naruto learns about murder. And Sasuke learns about love and about opportunity.
1. Yellow Tape

**Title**: Hope is a Thing With Feathers

**By**: Ember

If you honestly think I own Naruto, you're, no offense, but a wee bit slow. It's © Kishimoto, and so it will remain until I somehow writhe my way into his will. Somehow. I haven't figured out how.

**Pairings**: Okay. Deep breath, now. SasuNaru ( -main pairing), SasuSaku, SakuNaru, SakuLee, NaruHina, HinaKiba, ShikaIno, ShikaNeji, probably a couple more. At least, that's what I expect to do. I'm not one-hundred percent sure, say SakuNaru will work out... But anyway. We all love. 3

**Warnings**: Alright. There _will_ be yaoi, for those of you not quiiiite slick enough to have caught on yet. Het, though most people are just fine with that. The whole thing starts off with SasuSaku, which I hope won't scare off SasuNaru fans... Some angst, possibly more than I intended- you all know how this sort of thing gets away with you. Erm... Profanity, some violence, some smex (lemons, limes, the occasional zest to give a boring chapter a new zing of flavor), bad humor, and the tendency to rant like all hell in the Author's Notes.

**Dedication**: To those reviewers who kept me writing for Fireworks, which as my first (almost ever) completed fic, I am absurdly proud of. -preenpreen- Namely though not solely **Evvy**, **HeeroTomoe**, **Ruby Love**, **Magical flying-dragon**, and **Pale Rider**. I hope to keep up the same and finish this one... If I start slowing down, someone has to whack me over the head with a large, metaphorical net-hammer. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed any of my stories, will review, or is reviewing right now.

Chapter One

Yellow Tape

-

The strands in your eyes

That color them wonderful

Stop me and steal my breath

Emeralds from mountains

Thrust towards the sky

Never revealing their depth

-

This Uchiha is a touch-free zone.

Please refrain from hugging, clinging, holding hands with, or engaging in any public displays of affection with this Uchiha. Avoid physical contact unless you intend to have sex with him. If you have something to say, please think it over very carefully, write it down, read it over, and throw it away, because chances are very good he doesn't want to hear it. Loud, open declarations about how you 'caught Sasuke' are permitted so long as they are restrained to an area more than fifty feet from said Uchiha. Any declarations of love are discouraged unless you're naked and kneeling in front of him. While wearing clothing, please respect his personal space, and make few sudden movements or loud noises while around him, because you're only going to piss him off more.

Sakura sighed and jammed her hands into her pockets. She was, tops, three inches from Sasuke. Their arms were actually touching, the sleeve of his light jacket brushing against her bare arm. Their footsteps were completely synchronized, the quiet impact of sandal on dust amplified by two. She could smell the slight citrus of his shampoo. She knew the exact brand of shampoo he used; she'd known it for years, but it always smelled better in person than in the bottle.

But if they were this close, this very, very close, why did she feel like she was miles away from him? If she had this glaringly vivid memory of lying on her back in the dirt, beaten down on her first mission as Chuuin, then being rescued by the same person she walked beside now, whisked back to shelter and nursed back to health, kissed on the lips and laid on her back while a quiet voice assured her that it wasn't all a dream, then why did it feel like she was walking down the street all alone?

It was probably because they weren't talking. Or touching. Sasuke was staring straight forward, like he didn't even know she was there. If 'Sasuke and Sakura' wasn't such public knowledge right now, she would be mistaken for just another of the black-haired shinobi's fangirls- in fact, rumors about them breaking up had circulated so many times over the past two months that sometimes Sakura worried- had Sasuke really told Ino's little sister's best friend that he was planning on dumping her! What if he was? But he hadn't, and they'd been together for three months, so that was something. Right? Sakura shot a glance at her boyfriend and smiled to herself- it was awesome, being here with him- she felt, for the first time, like she was really, really loved.

And, as if hearing her thoughts and wanting to complete the day for her, Sasuke deigned, at long last, to speak, his voice running over her like wet velvet. "We're almost there." He had such a sexy voice.

The edge of the woods was familiar turf- Sakura vividly remembered the first time they'd been there as official ninjas- yeah, she and Ino had played here as little kids, but the first memory was fresher, and a little more bittersweet. This was the exact place where they'd become real, live Genin- there was the tree Naruto had hung from, there was the bush Sakura thought she'd seen dying Sasuke come up from, there was the rock the blonde had been tied to when Sasuke had given in and helped him out.

"God, we were such idiots," she whispered to Sasuke, remembering the loud abrasiveness of Naruto, Sasuke's refusal to work together, her own fluttering flirting. For the first time that day, Sasuke turned towards her, a smirk spreading across his face. He'd come to the same conclusion.

"Come on," he muttered under his breath, running straight up the trunk of a tree and perching in the branches. Sakura followed him, a little slower but right on his heels.

Kakashi had told them to stay discreet and quiet. It must have worked- of the three kids on the ground, two girls and a boy, none looked up as they approached. One of the girls sat boredly on the ground, while the other girl leaned against the trunk of a tree and fiddled with the lengths of her hair and the boy paced. "Are you sure this is where he said to meet him?" he asked, after a second. "He's really late if it is."

The second girl shrugged minimalistically. "This is the place. Right? I mean, unless we were given the wrong directions."

"I think we must have been," the first girl interjected quietly. Her tone reminded Sakura of Hinata. "It's been over an hour."

A familiar voice broke in, there. "Yo," Kakashi said, walking out of no-where like he always did. Sasuke smirked again as the three kids jumped. "Sorry I'm late. There was an assassination attempt on the Hokage right after lunch, and I had to run by there to clear things up."

The standing girl stared at him in disbelief. "That's... a lie," she said, dumbfounded, as if the idea of Kakashi lying was entirely absurd. Which, considering that he was her new teacher, and a Jounin besides, it might have seemed.

Sakura looked up as Sasuke straightened and began to walk away. She hurried to catch up to him. "Do you think they'll pass his test?" When that failed to elict a response, she continued, "I mean, we were the first ever, you know, to pass, but Naruto has a big mouth and the whole trick-question thing is probably ruined." Once again, Sasuke didn't answer. Sakura hesitated and looked over her shoulder, though they were already too far away for her to see her old teacher and his new students. As Chuuin, Team 7 was now in charge of their own training, their own missions, and their own teamwork. That meant Kakashi got a new team, Team whichever-number that one was- maybe the second generation of Team 7, for all Sakura knew. She'd wanted to see them, when Kakashi met them, and Sasuke, after a little begging, had eventually agreed to come. Naruto had declined the invitation.

After seeing them, Sakura thought maybe she understood why. Those three were going to inherit their life, were going to take over after everything they had been doing for the past half-decade. It was an odd thought, accompanied by a painful pang of nostalgia. Naruto had never been good at dealing with nostalgia- as it generally required good memories and Naruto's childhood was anything but pleasant, he hadn't gotten much experience at it.

Sasuke had never been good at dealing with nostalgia, either. Which was probably why he was walking so fast.

The black-haired Chuuin dropped to the ground, followed closely by his pink-headed girlfriend. "Sasuke?" she called after him.

"No," he replied after a second. Sakura reeled back for a second before he clarified what he was refusing. "I don't think they're going to pass."

Sakura stared after him for a second. "Oh," she said, in response, and hurried to catch up to him again.

-

Naruto didn't even bother to knock. The door swung open and he stormed in like he owned the place, collapsing bonelessly into one of the chairs lined up in front of Tsunade's desk. The fifth Hokage looked up at his arrival, then patiently waited for him to sit down, studying him- he'd done some growing up since she'd become Hokage, and it amused her to see how much every time he came here. He was taller than Sakura, now- finally, the poor kid- though still not quite as much as Sasuke, and had gotten a little broader than both. He'd grown the golden hair a little bit, so it hung down a little past his earlobes, though brushing it still wasn't going to happen on a regular basis.

"Tsunade-baba," he greeted her, cheerfully using the nick-name he'd given her when he was a kid. He grinned for a second, a flash of the cheeky Genin- gods above, had it only been three years ago that he'd TPed the academy- showing on his face. Then the grin was gone, replaced by a more subdued smile. He looked more like the Chuuin who had stopped an attack on the village last year by a small but skilled group of bandits. "Something wrong? Why'd you call me here?"

The- more-or-less, at least by sight- young woman leaned across her desk and met the kitsune's blue eyes seriously. "Naruto, we have a bit of a problem."

The blonde frowned. "A mission? Are Sasuke and Sakura still on their way?"

Tsunade frowned and toyed slightly with the end of her sleeve. "I'm asking Rock Lee and Hyuuga Hinata to go with you, Naruto. I don't want Sasuke and Sakura getting involved." Naruto didn't ask why, but his quiet glare visibly tried to pry the answer from her. What was she supposed to tell him, though? She pretended she couldn't see the inquiry in his eyes. "You'll do fine with them. You work perfectly well with Lee, remember when you tutored those kids from the academy, when Iruka was sick? And Hinata, I'm sure, is perfectly easy to get along with." Maybe not with Naruto, though. Naruto was naturally loud, he'd smother the quiet, shy Hyuuga who would be too distracted by him to try and get a word in edgewise- but she and Lee were the only people available. Kiba and Shino were off undercover in Wave country, Neji and Tenten were on a relatively small envoy mission to Sand, Shikamaru wouldn't want to do anything that Sasuke could do just as easily in his place, and Chouji and Ino had yet to pass the Chuuin exams.

Naruto looked at her quizzically for another second, then shrugged, visibly dismissing the question from his mind. "What's the mission?" He didn't like the meetings to drag on too long. The Hokage's office was always a little stuffy. One day, when he was Hokage, he'd get a couple of windows put in, and damn assassination protection to hell, anyway.

He would be able to handle any threat, anyway. He was himself.

"There's been a... problem, near the Sand-Leaf border. Lee will get a map." Naruto was hopeless with maps. "Important people have been dying. Lee will get in-depth details." Naruto was helpless with details, too. "He'll fill you in when you get there, you'll remember it better. I want to know why they're dying, and who's killing them off. We're pretty sure it's assassination, if it's not, the mission will be easier. Arrest him if you can, if you can't or don't get the chance, just come back and we'll send out a Jounin." The implied command- don't do anything stupid. Chuuin were never given assassination assignments, those only went to Jounin and even then they were rare. Tsunade could hire hunter-nins if she had to, but she had no wish for an abundance of assassins living in Konoha.

"When?"

"Be packed by noon, three days from now." She rose her hand to keep Naruto from getting up to leave. "Please try and pack like a _ninja_, Naruto. I don't need Sakura complaining to know you don't always pack for missions like you have a brain larger than the size of a beetle. That's saying, nothing stuffed or cute or obscure and absolutely no-"

"Ramen," the blonde broke in, grinning. "I know, Tsunade-baba. We went over this _last_ time."

"And you ignored me last time, too," she replied, and sighed with resignation as the _kyuubi_ bearer laughed. "Okay, Naruto. Just be careful, alright?"

Naruto nodded. "Alright." He didn't need to know anything more, he'd just ask Lee for more information as they got closer to their goal. He was never really in charge of missions, which was fine with him- he didn't need to do all the planning or any of the stupid shit, so long as he got to be at the head of the game when it came down to kicking ass.

"You can go, now, Naruto." But the dismissal was spoken to the back of an orange shirt. Naruto waved without turning around as he saw himself out.

Tsunade sighed again and examined her desk as the door closed behind the blonde. It was freakishly neat. It always bothered her; in her own time, she was never this neat. But her hands yearned to do something while she sorted out her friends like numbers, shoved one after another into a situation that could kill them, but a situation she couldn't ever go to again, herself. And she was a Healer. They could need her.

She reached over and pulled a pile of papers off her desk. It was a formal stack of A-ranked requests, some from weeks ago that she couldn't throw away because they had never been complete, and that piece of paper had killed one of her friends. Almost frantically, she started to try and rearrange it, this time, by date.

-

Naruto met Sakura and Sasuke on the walk home. The pink-haired shinobi was clutching her boyfriend's sleeve, smiling brightly, looking for all the world like some little Genin who had just caught the world's biggest fish. "Hey, Naruto!"

Sasuke, looking patiently tolerant, like an old cat being petted backwards, looked up at him and raised his hand in a half-hearted salute. A grunt that could have been "Hi" and could have been "You're not dead yet?" emerged from his mouth.

Naruto forced a grin that was more than he felt like giving and waved cheerily at Sakura. "Sakura-chan!" he greeted enthusiastically. Then, dramatically less so, "Sasuke." He looked away so they wouldn't see the jealousy on his face- not so much that it wasn't expected, though they probably expected him to be jealous of Sasuke... more because he didn't want to make Sakura upset. She was so much happier, now, than she had been when they were Genin and Sasuke barely even bothered noticing her. If she thought Naruto was jealous of his black-haired teammate, she'd be upset.

If she knew Naruto was jealous of _her_, she'd be more than upset.

"Lee-kun says you're going on a mission," Sakura said, cheerfully. She shoved her rose-colored bangs out of her eyes and grinned up at her teammate. "Did Tsunade tell you why we aren't coming?"

Naruto shrugged and said, honestly, "I didn't ask." He grinned brighter, a sort of false cheer commandeering his face. "Maybe it'll be fun, working with Lee and Hinata. I've never done a real mission with Lee before and I hardly do anything at all with Hinata. And hey, maybe _they _won't constantly call me an idiot and say I can't do anything right," he said, the last part aimed at Sasuke.

The black-haired Chuuin blinked at him, then shrugged. "If you have any useful abilities beyond throwing copies of yourself at an enemy and tying your shoes more-or-less without making mistakes, be sure to use them and try to impress Hinata. Idiot."

Naruto snorted and wrapped his arm around Sakura's shoulder to cover up the time he took to think of a good comeback. "Unlike some people," he said after a second, "I don't _have_ to try and _impress_ women. Some of us can charm naturally, Sasuke."

Sakura waited for Sasuke's reaction to the blonde's casual embrace. When it didn't come, she shrugged off Naruto's arm herself. Sasuke smirked. "I'm sure the bullshit you spew out of your mouth is a real turn-on," he barbed back.

"Asshole."

"Dolt."

Was it absurd that he wanted to kiss him? Naruto assumed it wasn't, after all, he'd come to terms with his crush, long-term crush though it was, a long time ago, and it had long since graduated past the point where he was freaked out every time he wanted to make out with his rival. The... other stuff, he wanted to do with him, not so much. But the making out, he'd come to terms with, almost. It still hurt that it wasn't happening, not in this lifetime and probably, as he wasn't exactly the type of person that was really likely to find salvation hiding under a rock- shinobi often weren't- not in the next, and it still hurt to see _his_ crush getting it on with _his_ other teammate and one of his best friends. So, yeah. Painful, yes. Absurd, no.

He opened his mouth to respond when Sakura cut him off with a roll of her eyes. "Yeah, Naruto- rubber-" she jabbed her finger at the blonde, "glue," and pointed at Sasuke, "defense mechanisms remain intact. When do you have to leave?"

The _kyuubi_ vessel grinned. Sakura used to hate it much more when they spent all their time bickering- like him, though, she'd gotten over the problems of their Genin days. (It had only been three months, and already, so much nostalgia. What would happen to him when he became Hokage?) "Three days from now," he replied. "Leaves time to pack."

Sakura smiled. "And time to say goodbye. You want to meet us for lunch at Ichimaru's the day after tomorrow? I'll buy."

Naruto smiled in response, probably his most genuine smile of the day. "Sure," he replied, then grinned at Sasuke. "That is, if no one_ minds_..."

His teammate shrugged languidly. It was as close to assent as Sasuke came, and Naruto, never one to read too deeply into the Uchiha's gestures, took it at face value.

-

A/N: Oookay. Well, for those looking for efficient plot-making techniques, here's the reverse-psychology way- if you want two characters to get together, give one of them a girlfriend and then send the other one far away on a life-threatening mission with a girl who is secretly in love with him! That'll work!

No, seriously, I have a plan with this one. If the characters want to be agreeable with me on it; you know how they all can be...

Next chapter will mostly deal with how and why Sasuke is with Sakura, and I hope it can justify my writing SasuSaku. Not that I really mind the pairing, I just never thought I'd write it...

Reviews appreciated, reviewers worshiped.


	2. All Entrances of Opportunity in Temporar...

Chapter Two

All Entrances of Opportunity in Temporary Lockdown

by Ember

A/N: ...Guys?

All: Yes, Ember?

Y'all make me feel so much better for my own natural aversion to SasuSaku with your open hostility... Group hug-group hug- Yeah, I will obliterate that pairing in time... As I mentioned in last chapter, this one mostly deals with why I had the audacity to start with it. :P

The SasuNaru WILL be the main pairing, but it might take me a little while to get to it. Why? I have plans. Some angst, some fighting, and the death of one character. Normally, I don't like killing off characters. D: But this one is my absolute, number-one LEAST favorite character. So there. Feel free to guess who it is. I won't tell you, because I don't want to ruin the surprise, but I will warn you that someone's gonna die so you at least won't be shocked if he/she is your favorite.

Long-arse chapter title. Basically framed after the quote, "When a door of opportunity closes, God opens a window."

Because two people asked specific questions, I will respond to those two reviews:

**Ryushai**: Yeah, the fic title did come from Dickinson's poem. It's a nice poem, and I'm not the first person, in fanfiction or published fiction if you look hard enough, to get titles from the titles and lines in songs or poems. Err... Good job, knowing what you're talking about, though? ()

**Ruby Love**: The first few paragraphs were really from Sakura's point of view, trying to get across that she feels a little bit used... (Which she probably should.) I'm hesitating a little bit 'cause I don't want to give the chapter away.

My plan to steal Naruto has not yet come through... It still belongs to Kishimoto.

¤¤

Tell me

That we belong together

Dress it up, in the trappings of love

I'll be captivated

I'll hang, from your lips

Instead of the gallows

Of heartache, that hang

From above

¤¤

People- Ino- had asked him, more than once, why _Sakura_- why _Forehead_- and more than once he'd been at a loss for words, floundering for an answer before just shrugging and ignoring them. Okay, he could have picked a more romantic expression than that, he could have told them that they were soulmates, or that it was because she was beautiful to _him_, or because he was in love with her. But wouldn't that have been at least somehow traitorous? If he was going to lie to himself, he should at least have the dignity to tell everyone else the truth, or else nothing at all.

It wouldn't all have been a lie. Sasuke _did_, in a way, think Sakura was beautiful. He did love her. But she wasn't the same _sort_ of beautiful, not the right _kind_ of love. He loved her. He wasn't in love with her. It was a weird line but it hadn't been crossed, even with him trying desperately to cross it. Maybe Uchiha couldn't _be_ in love, maybe he was just a sort of solid, emotionless statue.

So, people would ask him if he ever, ever in his life, found the courage to confess this to anyone, why Sakura?

Sakura, because while he didn't love her like that, he most certainly, definitely, without doubt, did not, not, not, not, _not not _NOT love Uzumaki Naruto.

And if he didn't love anyone else and he did care about Sakura, he really did care about her, wasn't that an excuse for thinking he was in love with her? Acting like he was in love with her?

Mercilessly using her as a cover-up for affections directed at someone else?

Maybe not. But he couldn't help it, and now that he was in it this deep, he couldn't stop. He couldn't leave her now without telling her why, and he didn't think he'd be able to lie to her with the same fluidity that he lied to himself. He cared more for Sakura than he cared for himself, and he couldn't hurt her like that- he'd prefer, in hindsight, to just ignore any sort of feelings he had towards anyone else- not that he had any, of course, of course not- and just stay with her, keep her as happy as he made her. It was worth it, right?

She was asleep beside him, her rose-colored hair a spray of color across the white pillow, brilliant even with all the lights turned off. Her bare shoulder rose and fell with her breathing, and he traced the white curve with a finger. She had soft skin and it felt wrong beneath his hands.

He _had_ thought he was in love with her. Well, no, he couldn't say that exactly, because he had never believed _in love_ existed in real life, he had always thought there were people you cared about and people you wanted to sleep with and when those overlapped you had as close to love as possible. But he had always thought he was as close to that with Sakura as he could get- he cared when she went quiet or became withdrawn, he worried when she got hurt, he listened to her when she talked. Wasn't that close enough? He couldn't say he really enjoyed their 'dates' because they were so absurdly different from the time they spent together as friends or teammates; Sakura clung to his arm and talked unceasingly and seemed to be telling herself that she was happier than she was. He couldn't really say he _disliked_ the sex, though he had always thought there was more to it than that, like it would be something a little more... important. He didn't _dislike_ it, he was _disappointed_. And come to think of it, he didn't like dwelling on that topic for long.

So he wasn't _in love_ with Sakura, and he wasn't _in love_ with Ino- he told her so every time she asked him why he'd chosen his rose-haired teammate over her- and since he was so obviously, totally, completely not in love with Naruto, he didn't even really care that the blonde was off on a life-risking mission without him, and _with_ a cute girl who dared to openly adore him. Seriously. Entirely care-free.

His stomach throbbed once in protest, a short but pointed glance of pain that traveled quickly down his spine, and Sasuke leaned back into his pillow and groaned to himself. Sakura shifted, giving a little moan in her sleep, and Sasuke, unable to take it any more, sat up and rolled out of bed, pulling on his discarded boxers and walking quietly downstairs. He wanted to be alone. No, he didn't want to be alone, but he didn't want to be with his best friend and rival so he wanted to be alone, dammit.

...Self delusion was complicated. Thoroughly frustrated with himself, Sasuke collapsed, dressed in his boxers and without even a blanket, onto the couch, curled up with his face shoved into the back of it, and went to sleep.

Unfortunately for him, dreams tended not to care for self-delusion. His sleep was only barely restful.

¤¤¤¤

It was well past dark by the time they got to the next village and nearly midnight before they found an inn willing to take in three wandering shinobi without notice or much in the way of reimbursement. It would take three days, half the time spent running full-out, to get to the border and three days back, plus however much time they had to spend in the village where the target was, so Lee, who was also in charge of the money Tsunade had funded them, had been trying to keep spending to a minimum. Naruto discovered this the hard way, suddenly limited to three meals a day, and he wasn't sure he liked this place much, even though Lee assured him, in the nice-guy way he had, that it would be fine.

A tall, thin, balding man took their money, looked over it briefly as if trying to hide the suspicion he regarded it with, then tossed the black-haired Chuunin two keys- one for Lee and Naruto's room, a slightly larger one with a bed and an unfolding couch, and one for Hinata, comparatively very small with only one narrow bed. The boys saw the Hyuuga to her room before retiring to their's.

"Ah... goodnight, Naruto. Lee."

Naruto smiled down at her and felt her cave under the expression, blushing scarlet and staring a bullet-hole into the ground. "Night, Hinata-chan." Lee only waved solemnly.

The boys' room smelled slightly of dust but, upon reflection, Naruto could think of a variety of worse things it could have smelled like. Without hesitation, Lee threw his stuff on the fold-out couch, leaving the bed to his new teammate, and proceeded to wrestle with the cushions, throwing them into a pile on the floor. Naruto dropped his own bag on his bed and went to help Lee unfold the couch, pulling it out into a slightly creaky but more-or-less comfortable mattress. The shorter shinobi threw a cushion from the couch to use as a pillow, since Naruto's bed only had one on it and the fold-out bed hadn't come with any, and collapsed, fully clothed, to splay out from corner to corner. His hair shifted slightly as one body, appearing like a slightly-tilted bowl, and his too-round eyes closed for a second then opened again, focusing solemnly on the ceiling. Naruto smirked and took off his shirt, throwing it and his pants in a pile by his bed. (He'd have to wear them again because he never packed enough clothing, but he didn't really care if they were wrinkled.) Dressed in his boxers, he clambered into bed and sat for a second on top of the blankets. When he was working with Lee, in training or the few teaching jobs they had allowed be thrusted upon them, he always felt just a little more comfortable than when he was around Sasuke; maybe that's why he liked working with him so much. After all, you couldn't really look _bad_ around Lee, and there was no need to impress him, and little effect if you tried. And it was easier to walk around in your underwear around Lee, and not hard at all to see him undressed.

"So," he said, a little teasingly, leaning against the single pillow, "how're you getting over Sakura?"

There was a long pause, then, just when Naruto thought he might had been toeing the line, a forceful sigh. "Poorly," Lee confessed morosely. "I've proved myself again and again to her, and she still walks around arm in arm with the Uchiha." A lump, large and, by the pain, obviously spiked, grew in Naruto's throat. "What does Sasuke have that I don't?"

"You mean, aside from-" Good looks, grace, repertoire, and a lofty position well out of a certain blonde's reach? Naruto managed to curb himself just before he snapped back his answer. Okay, maybe he was bitter- that was no reason to bite Lee's head off; the kid didn't even know that his words would have an effect, given that the blonde had been demonstrating quite well, lately, how much he'd gotten over Sakura. How could Lee have known that he had a new- not new, but newly-accepted- crush? He couldn't leave the first four words hanging, though, and grabbed something random out of the air. "Sakura?"

'A stick up his ass?' he thought of a millisecond later, when it was too late to use the better repose.

Lee, however, didn't seem to notice his lapse or even how weak his response really was. He laughed, albeit lightly and obviously just being polite. "Well. And what about you, Naruto? Are you planning to take advantage of this mission?" A weird, flat wink. "I won't tell Tsunade."

What? This was a regular arrest, what did that have to do with anything? "What do you mean?"

Lee rolling his eyes was an odd phenomenon. "Hinata," he said, plainly, and Naruto was bowled over by a tsunami of 'duh.' "She likes you."

"I know." Naruto glanced skyward and kept his eyes locked on the ceiling.

"...So?"

"So, what?"

The look on Lee's face would have been 'conspirational' on anyone else's. Naruto had gotten good at translating the facial nauces of his friend. "You don't want to go visit the girl room, just for one night? I told you, I wouldn't tell-"

"No."

"No?"

Naruto writhed under his covers and collapsed backwards onto his bed. Lee got up to undress, Naruto turned over to stare at the wall. "No."

He heard the creak of bedsprings and thought, just for a second, about how good it was that Lee was on that bed while he got this one. He moved a lot in his sleep. "Night, Lee."

"Good night, Naruto."

¤¤¤¤

His face was buried in yellow hair, light and tickling and smelling sort of like oranges, and a little bit like dust, like... like you'd expect a fox to smell like, mixed with what you'd expect a Naruto to smell like. His arms were wrapped around the blonde's chest, his body molded along the contour of the kitsune's back, and it would have felt good except that it was just a dream and you couldn't feel things in dreams, didn't everyone know that? Wasn't he too old for this kind of dream, anyway? Wasn't this more the kind of dream he'd have a couple of years ago, when he was a Genin and a kid and still thinking with his crotch as much as his brain? It wasn't the kind of dream he _wanted_ to have, but with the knowledge that it was only a dream came the knowledge that the content of it wouldn't bother him until he woke up, and so he set himself to enjoying it with vigor.

Which was when his mindset was disturbed by a distant yell, "Sasuke," in a high-pitched, familiar voice, and the warmth in front of him was gone- imagined warmth in an imagined scene, god it hurt to think that- and the imagined hand on his leg was gone and the imagined smell from imagined hair was ripped away on a sudden, frigid wind. "Sasuke!"

A woman, long black hair whipping around the moon-shaped frame of her face, brought the back of her hand into contact with Sakura's face, hard, snapping the girl away from her with a crack. The pink-haired girl hit the dust with a groan, a gray cloud rising around her in wisps, then lay still; not dead, she couldn't be dead, she wouldn't die, would she? Sasuke stepped forward, then started running forward, pulling a kunai from the inside of his shirt where a line of them were sewn in. He had to save Sakura because he cared about her; and she cared about him so the solution to his Naruto problem occurred to him, in between the ground and the missing-nin who threatened to kill his teammate. He wouldn't love the blonde if he could make himself love Sakura. Would he?

"Sasuke!" Why was she yelling? She was unconscious, wasn't she? "Wake up!"

No, because if he woke up he wouldn't remember the first part of the dream. It was already fading away... Did he even want to remember it? His dream-self flew at the missing-nin, his weapon pointed at her throat, but would he be able to kill her, even for Sakura? No, he knew he couldn't. He knew he wouldn't be able to because he remembered this very event, down to the slight wind tossing the enemy's crop of dark hair, not as a dream but as reality.

She brought up her hands and formed seals, and he faltered in his attack because _this_ wasn't the way the fight had gone; he'd avoided impaling her and she'd gotten away, mission failed, shinobi alive. Naruto, who had stayed home recovering from some injuries he'd sustained during their Chuunin exam, had bitched about how if _he_ had been there, they'd have gotten the target and come home with time to spare, and Sakura, by the way, wouldn't have ever been in danger at all. This wasn't how it had happened. She wasn't supposed to fight back.

And as he identified the seals, his blood ran cold, suddenly, his veins freezing over, because the jutsu happened to be the least frightening and yet most successful jutsu ever created. This woman... couldn't know that jutsu. She couldn't. It was impossible. (Of course, it was a dream. Impossible meant nothing and the entirety of the dream had gone to prove that.) And by the knowing look in her eyes and the certain quality to the grin on her face, Sasuke knew, knew that when she finished the seals and completed Naruto's special trick, the world's stupidest and simultaneously most brilliant jutsu, she wouldn't be a pale woman with long black hair but she would stand in front of him as...

"Sasuke!"

And, by a twist of his thought train, the Sexy no Jutsu screwed up and the female shinobi suddenly _did_ become Sasuke, facing Sasuke, looking surprised. And then Sasuke, the real Sasuke, opened his eyes.

Damn, but it was bright. He squeezed them shut again and tried to remember the decaying fragments of his dream, but he couldn't quite hold on...

"Sasuke. Finally." Sakura looked slightly amused. "Morning."

"Hn." He really should have answered her but he really couldn't, right then. He sat up, feeling the couch yield beneath him and shivering slightly in the cold; he hadn't had a blanket all night and some genius- probably him, but for the moment he'd be bitter- had left a window open.

"Why did you come down here last night?" Okay, he could ignore the hurt in Sakura's voice, if he really tried. Seriously, he could. That wasn't guilt, that was... annoyance. "You look tired." And he should have. He had spent so long tossing around upstairs.

He meant to say, 'sleepwalking,' but he couldn't lie to the rose-haired girl like he could everyone else. So he said, "I wanted to be alone." And it was true. Only it wasn't true because he _hadn't_ wanted to be alone, he just hadn't wanted to be with _her._

Maybe he shouldn't have said it so waspishly. Sakura looked even more hurt, now. "I'm sorry," she said meekly, lacing her fingers together.

He held in a sigh. "It's alright," he replied, shrugging. He should have apologized for snapping. Really, he should have.

She smiled faintly though she still looked a little hurt. _Shit_. "Well, it's already twelve-thirty. You missed Naruto, Lee and Hinata taking off."

_Twelve thirty?_ He hadn't slept past eight in the morning in ten years, and this wasn't the first time he'd ever spent half the night tossing around or even up and training. Hell, he'd gotten himself thoroughly saturated with alcohol, sloshed around half the night and collapsed at around three to wake up, more-or-less aware, at six AM- with a pounding headache and a tongue that felt like a scale model of the Sahara, but awake.

Sakura seemed to expect a response, so he said, "Hn."

"You wanna go get some lunch now, Sasuke? Or... you know... we could get some breakfast, if you're more in the mood for that..."

This wasn't fair, was it? Wasn't this cheating at life? He didn't love Sakura, he knew he didn't love Sakura, so didn't she deserve better, didn't she deserve something more, like happiness, or someone who would really, really _care?_ Wasn't he taking that from her, from himself, by pretending to feel something he never had? He didn't love her. He _knew_ he didn't love her.

So he said, "Lunch is fine," and got up to go get dressed. Sakura was smiling in the same way Sakura always smiled when they were getting ready to go out.

Besides, he was Uchiha Sasuke. Stoic ninja of Konoha. He didn't love anyone- and still she begged for it.

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A/N: Heheh... Oh, Sasuke, you angsty... guy... :P Alright, this chapter gets kind of confusing because I always thought Sasuke would have a very confusing inner mind. 3... And yes, the middle part of the chapter does take place twenty-two hours after the first part and twelve hours after the last part. Chronological order is ridiculously overrated.

Character Challenge of the chapter was definitely Rock Lee, whose never easy to pin down because he just so deviates from one's average anime character. I got some help, though, from a fic called "The Slightly Ecchi Adventures of Rock Lee", which I highly recommend. Sooo cute!

Wow, you guy's reviews were really nice, even if I do feel kind of ripped apart for the first pairing... XD I don't blame you all, though. And I am worshiping you! I have little idols sculpted in your likenesses out of Hershey Kisses wrappers... (Alright, not really. That'd be creepy. But I worship you in my own way.) Thanks so much!


	3. Unfair

Chapter Three

by Ember

A/N: Ohmigod, I'm so sorry this is late. D: And short. D:D: But it was hard and it took forever and I just wasn't in an agsty-mood for a while. Now, though, I'm PMSing and in perfect mood to write some dark, angry fiction. Alright, now some speculation.

Hmm.

Reading your reviews, I realize something odd- some of you seem to expect Sasuke to be a far more fluffy character than I intend to make him. I almost hesitate to mention this, because fluff is really more my thing than angst and all that, but- that's not my intention at all. () Sasuke is going to probably do bad things, make huge, harsh mistakes and have to pick and chose what parts he makes better. I'm trying to really... I dunno, _capture_ Sasuke? He's a bitch on the outside and not altogether that bad on the inside, he just likes the outer-him better. Err... I dun' wanna give too much away. Just... fluff won't be too often, and it'll probably take a while and a lot of blood and a lot of black-soul sobbing first. So enjoy.

The second chapter's dream sequence was NOT prophetic. It was, in fact, a memory, but some parts of it, particularly the end, which was mostly influenced by Sakura yelling his name in real life, didn't really happen but only happened because Sasuke was dreaming and you never really dream exact memories... Sakura's not going to die. Sorry, those who hoped she would... ()

Your constructive criticism violently sodomizes me and I love every one of you for it. I'll try and keep Lee more IC but he's so HARD... Well, thanks for all the reviews, and much love for everyone:D

Naruto - not mine - Kishimoto's.

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I'll be

Your cryin' shoulder

I'll be

Love suicide

I'll be

Better when I'm older

I'll be the greatest fan of your life

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If he put more spin on it, it would go faster, hit harder; three kunai were already hilted into the tree but he was desperate to get them deeper. Couldn't Naruto entirely lose one in green wood? Couldn't Sasuke show the pointed tip through the opposite side? Why couldn't he? He concentrated on the trunk, on the exact ripple of bark where he wanted the tip to hit, to bury in, to strike through. He focused himself, found his equilibrium, rooted himself on the ground in an automatic exercise a million hours of meditation- and counting- had taught him.

If he got the kunai through the trunk in one try, Sakura would dump Sasuke.

"Hey, Lee!" He let fly, startled by the outburst, and watched in heartbroken horror as the weapon not only failed to go through the trunk, but failed to hit the tree at all. Naruto sauntered towards him, his arms pillowed behind his blonde head, still dressed only in his boxers despite the early morning chill with his hair unbrushed and the unshowered, sleepy look still clinging to his face. Lee calmed himself down without even giving himself time to get angry; he wouldn't be annoyed at Naruto, it wasn't his fault. Lee shouldn't have let himself be startled like that, should have grown to expect it. He'd have to work on that.

"Good morning!"

"You're up early." The blonde trotted over, grabbed the fallen kunai, and, with a flick of his wrist and undoubtably an unconscious surge of chakra, buried it deep enough into the tree that the hilt was gone into the wood.

Not really, actually. It was already noon. "I wake with dawn to train," the taijutsu-nin responded instead of pointing this out, hiding his own emotion at what the blonde had accomplished without trying. "Hinata also woke early, and went out to breakfast and to shop. She wanted you to come, but you weren't yet awake, and I can't skip my exorcizes."

Naruto nodded, understanding, and grinned with sudden inspiration. "Hey, you wanna spar?"

Lee blinked. "Like that?" A stiff nod in the kitsune's direction illustrated his point.

Naruto looked down, taking in inventory of himself; he was dressed in his boxers, still hadn't taken a shower, brushed his teeth or hair, washed his face, or put on deodorant; still hadn't even eaten breakfast or grabbed his sandals. He had, in fact, gotten up as soon as he'd woken up and wandered off, wondering why Lee had gotten up at the ungodly hour of whatever-came-before-eleven-thirty. "Why not?"

And so, they sparred. It took an hour and a half before Lee finally admitted defeat, reeling and bruised, while the demon fox inside the blonde automatically began to heal his minor wounds. The stretch of tan skin across his chest and stomach was dotted with bruises that had just a few minutes before been vividly purple and were now swirling a less livid yellow-green. The beautiful green beast of Konoha frowned slightly, vowing to train for five hours after they stopped for the night later, and get up a few hours early to train yet more in the morning. He shouldn't have lost so early. He'd been training for so long to get this far, so how could Naruto still take him out like that?

When they had been Genin, Lee had been able to defeat the _kyuubi_ bearer easily, with barely any effort at all. But with time, Naruto had met and passed levels that Lee's limitations had kept him from, tapping into the demon fox's chakra with a skill that seemed second-nature by now. Now, only Sasuke could really rival Naruto and Lee was left struggling in their dust, and behind most of the rest- especially, to the taijutsu-nin's distaste, Neji- working twice as hard with half the reward.

It was frustrating, but it wasn't over. He had gotten this far, gotten to be a Chuunin and at the same time as his peers, and he could become stronger yet, could become a Jounin or even Hokage, and then- then, surely, Sakura would see that Sasuke, for all his genius and his pretty face, wasn't good enough for her.

Nothing against Sasuke, of course. But combined, Gai's perfect model of masculine beauty that Lee had been so quick to adopt and his own determination and strength _had_ to overpower whatever charms the Uchiha had.

"Are you alright, Lee?" The blonde held a hand down to the black-haired boy and helped him to his feet, smiling genially as the frustrated scowl dissolved into the familiar determination on Lee's face. Yeah, the extra seven hours of training would help; he'd like it to be more but they _were_ on a mission, and too much training would have to wait until they'd finished it.

"Fine," he replied, giving the blonde a thumbs-up and hurrying inside to finish getting ready for the day. Naruto would want to shower, first, while Lee put something on the shallow cuts the spar had left him with, then the taijutsu-nin would take a turn and comb out the mess the training had left of his perfect bowl-shaped hair.

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Ichimaru's would have been fine with Sasuke but Sakura had wanted something nicer, a little closer to 'classy' while still being in their budget. Or, really, Sasuke's budget, since he automatically, trained and honed by nearly a year of dating, and being the one with far more money, offered to pay. Shikamaru and Ino were there, too, both paying their own portions at their insistence, which seemed to tick off Sakura a lot more than it ticked off Sasuke. Maybe she wanted to feel justified in depending on her boyfriend; she'd offered to pay her own share the first few times but after all their dates she'd gotten used to being covered.

Ino took a sip of water, waiting for Shikamaru to make up his mind on what he wanted to eat so they could go ahead and order. "So," she said, making both Sasuke and Sakura jump, "what kind of mission is Naruto on? I didn't hear the details but Neji says Lee was really excited about it, so it must have been something entertaining."

Sasuke pressed his mouth against his glass so he wouldn't be expected to talk while listening to Sakura explain. "It's an arrest-mission," she said, "like the ones we almost always do."

Shikamaru trailed a finger down the menu and said, "Lee was excited because he was asked to go and not Neji."

Neji and Shikamaru had both been made Jounins the past exam, and though the genius ninja's Anbu jacket was at home, Neji had the tendency to wear his around to tick off Lee. They weren't the two strongest-to everyone's surprise, Sasuke and Naruto kept that title between them- but Naruto wasn't deemed mature enough to take on the responsibility a Jounin held and Tsunade was reluctant to fully trust Sasuke after the Orochimaru incident. Neither one of them had been _told_ this but both had inferred it, and neither one of them mentioned it. Naruto, because it would be admitting that he was still childish and rude, and Sasuke out of an odd twist of guilt and anger.

Shikamaru and Neji had gotten the positions because one was brilliant and the other one a prodigy and both had been on more missions than half their peers combined. Maybe it was this new rank that had finally opened Ino up to her Teammate but either way shortly after the Jounin exam, while Sasuke and Sakura were just getting into the swing of being _together_, Ino had announced that she and Shikamaru were officially a couple.

In a way, Sasuke sympathized more with Ino than with Shikamaru. After all, the former had been pursuing _him_ until he had been taken away, and he knew what it was like to lose hope for one person and take second-best far better than he knew what it was like to be option number two. He wondered if Shikamaru was as blind to it as Sakura; the two smartest Chuunin in Konoha blinded by years-old crushes. It made him feel a little bit sick and he wondered if he was going to eat anything for lunch at all.

Ino and Sakura began chatting idly about Neji and Naruto and the Jounin exam, about how explosive the fighting had been and how amazing it was when Chouji had been paired up to fight Gaara and had shocked everyone by winning. "I had no clue he had been anywhere _near_ that strong," Sakura was saying.

Shikamaru just smiled and lifted one hand to signal a waiter, who came scurrying over, as always impressed by the presence of an Anbu, to take their order.

An hour later Sasuke paid for his and Sakura's meal while the other two counted up their due in cash. The pink-haired shinobi covered the tip, saying that she had to pay for _something_ with an odd smile towards Sasuke, and, talking idly among each other, the four got up and filed out, Ino beside Sakura, Sasuke beside Shikamaru.

"Amazing," Shikamaru muttered out of the corner of his mouth as Ino stopped for him, smiling brightly while she waited for him to catch up. Sasuke shrugged in response, assuming that he'd meant Ino and not anything _he'd_ done, and, his gesture gone primarily unnoticed, caught up to Sakura while Shikamaru sidled next to his girlfriend. They walked in these pairs for a while, until the latter two split off from the former, Ino, with a chivalry that she couldn't count on out of Shikamaru, walking her boyfriend home before going to her place. Sakura waved goodbye, her arm wrapped around Sasuke's, while Ino called almost-entirely-joking catcalls after Sasuke.

Sakura and Ino had almost completely regained their easy friendship of childhood, especially once Sakura had permanently 'won' Sasuke and they no longer had him to fight over. For a few weeks their relationship was primarily the rose-haired girl bragging to the other, having for the first time completely beaten Ino at something, but then even that faded away, leaving first companionship, then friendship once more. Sakura had helped Ino ask Shikamaru out, probably not thinking about it in the same cynical tones as her boyfriend, and Ino had dragged the genius-nin out on a few double-dates with Sakura and Sasuke. Maybe, even with the slightly-uncomfortable overtones, it was still a more solid friendship than before; Ino no longer had the popular-girl-stooping-to-your-level undertone when she was with Sakura and the rose-haired girl no longer felt like she had to prove herself.

"Are we just going to my house?" Sasuke said after a second, breaking what he just now noticed to be a sort of icy, uncomfortable silence. Sakura jumped slightly but seemed glad to have something to talk about.

"No," she said, smiling up at him. "Actually, could you walk me home? Kakashi wanted to train some tomorrow morning, so I should probably have a quiet night." Added to the fact that between the Uchiha questing for distractions from disturbing dreams and Sakura's own libido, always misbehaving around him, she would probably have a _late_ night at his house.

"Of course." Maybe she was encouraged by the disappointment in his voice and she didn't have to know that he bit his tongue to keep from screaming a name that was very different from her's whenever she did spend the night.

In her front yard she paused and put both of her hands- so small and so deceptively tough, they were wire-fingered and calloused, a ninja's hands with a female's appearance- into his and looked up into his eyes. He stared just below her's, at the curve of her cheek, and tried not to feel guilty, swearing to himself that he didn't care, that shinobi didn't 'love' anyway, that he never did lie to her, anyway.

"Thanks, Sasuke," she said, quietly, pushing a heavy lock of hair behind her ear. "Ah... I had a great time, tonight."

"Me, too." That wasn't a direct lie; for all that their 'dates' were hellish at best because the facade was exhausting to keep up, the food had been good and he wasn't directly adverse to the company, just a little uncomfortable trying to keep his masks in place. It was easier when it was the three of them, just Team 7, and he could act a little more relaxed because between the challenges and the second-by-second recounts of their missions, comparing difficulty and technique, he and Naruto never ran out of things to talk about the way he and Sakura did.

But Naruto was gone for now and he had to learn to keep himself standing without the blonde. He didn't need the arrogant little idiot running around after him like the lapdog he was, he didn't need him at all and life would have been easier if they had never met in the first place.

She leaned forward and pressed her lips against his cheek and he held himself rigidly in place. "I love you, Sasuke."

Once or twice, he'd told her the same thing, and maybe he had believed it, then. Probably not, because he refused to believe that love existed. And so rather than lie; he couldn't lie to her, he wouldn't, he leaned over and kissed her on the mouth, pretending that a kiss said everything that needed to be said even if it was a hypocritical kiss, a false kiss. Even if it tasted bitter and felt odd and even if it was the last thing he wanted and the last thing he needed.

She smiled up at him, then left him standing there in her lawn while she ran inside, left him standing there for a second before he walked slowly away.

He felt cold and dirty and absolutely horrible, a liar, a cheater, an asshole, a freak. Maybe Naruto had been right all along, he didn't deserve Sakura; but at the same time she asked for it, begged for it, and he had just been giving her what she wanted. She wanted a lie. He wouldn't hurt her with the truth, especially when the lie was the thing that made everyone happy in the end.

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Argh. Short chapter, and once more ending on Sasuke-contemplation. Poor Sasuke. He thinks too much. And poor Lee! Maybe I was a little mean to him this chapter, but I think he might have gotten a little more IC, don't you? Maybe? A little? Ah, well, I'm trying, alright? XD Reviews are always appreciated.


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